Talking To Amelia Coburn
Singer Songwriter Amelia Coburn returned to the Cambridge Folk Festival playing the Club Tent and delighting the audience with her fine songs, beautiful voice and ukulele playing.
The former nominee in the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards talked to Fatea writer Nic Rigby.
Amelia Coburn returned to the Cambridge Folk Festival this year after last playing it five years ago.
"That was my first, first proper festival. It was a big learning curve and I absolutely loved it then. So I knew I'd love it this time," she tells me.
"But it's still nerve-wracking. It's such an iconic festival and it's amazing. When you get here, you realize how lovely the crowd are. Everyone involved is lovely. It's a great place to be and I'm, I'm really happy to have played again this year."
I asked Amelia when she started getting involved in music?
"I've always sung when I was younger. I was singing away all the time. And then, when I was 15, I had a job at a cafe and I sang with a backing track, like jazz songs.
"It was then that I thought, oh, I'd like to accompany myself, and I'd tried violin as a kid and I was terrible - my mum and dad vouch for that - and then, I think my friend had just said 'why don't you try a ukulele, it's easier than guitar.
"And it was cheap. It was thing that I could buy and think if it didn't work out, it's only £20 off Amazon. So I got one for Christmas one year when I was 15 and it went from there. I picked it up really quickly and turned out to be pretty good at it. I just found my calling, I suppose."
Since then she has been embraced by the music community and the ukulele community, first playing the Grand Northern Ukulele Festival in 2017
"I played that festival and then discovered this whole world of ukulele players and you know, and everyone thinks it's just George Formby songs, but there's so much more to the ukulele than that.
"And that festival really proved that to me and I played a few songs and playing covers at the time with a few of my own stuff. And it went down really well.
"For the ukulele scene, I think it's really helped that school children are learning the ukulele now."
Amelia tells me she started songwriting when she's about 18.
"I supported a wonderful folk singer from Teesside Vin Garbutt, who's passed away now, and his songs really inspired me. I was like, wow.
"His songs were telling stories and he was great with the audience. And I thought maybe I'll try giving it a go. And I wrote a song called Song of the Sea Rover, and that got me like plays on BBC Radio Six and I got nominated for the BBC Young Folk Awards and that song gave me the confidence to say: Actually I can write songs and I'm a songwriter."
Amelia says she's inspired by everything from "stories I've been told", "nightmares about pirates" and "people and places".
While her musical inspirations have come from "classical music, a bit of jazz, the Sex Pistols and the Clash, a lot of different musical influences.
"I really admire artists who can, who can sort of change their style with each song or album. Like, I love the band the Divine Comedy and Rufus. Wainwright and Scott Walker."
She's hoping soon to record a new album of her own songs.
"The albums I've got out already are like covers and things that I've recorded from before. And I sort of want to do an official debut album with all my own stuff and do it properly, but I'm very picky with the songs I write and I'm not the most prolific of songwriters.
"But I think it's coming along, I've got enough songs now and now I just need to like, choose what are gonna be on the album, record them. And that's the next thing is, is the album really? Yeah. Yeah. And see where that takes me."
(Nic Rigby(words & pic) is part of the band Nic Norton and the County Band. See nicnortonmusic.com)
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